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Modern Art

MODERN STYLE

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Modern
The Spire -- New York
The Spire -- New York

The Spire -- New York

By Lawrence Wilbur

Located in Plano, TX

The Spire -- New York. 1985. Etching and drypoint. 14 1/2 x 11 (sheet 22 1/2 x 18). Trial proof of the second third, prior to the edition of 100. Printed on Rives cream wove paper, on the full sheet with deckle edges. A rich impression in pristine condition, housed in an archival sleeve. This etching has never been matted. Provenance: the artist's estate. Titled, annotated 'third state - trial proof' and signed in pencil. A dramatic view of the Chrysler Building. Painter and printmaker Lawrence Nelson...

Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

Double Vision 68 - Modern Shiny Resin Minimalist Vibrant Red Abstract Artwork
Double Vision 68 - Modern Shiny Resin Minimalist Vibrant Red Abstract Artwork

Double Vision 68 - Modern Shiny Resin Minimalist Vibrant Red Abstract Artwork

By Ricky Hunt

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Ricky Hunt’s mixed media minimalist wall art is influenced by his tumultuous past that led to a paradigm shift in creativity and life. He covers the wood panel with layers of acrylic...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

Only Elvis - Signed Limited Edition

Only Elvis - Signed Limited Edition

By BATIK

Located in London, GB

Only Elvis by BATIK Archival pigment pop art print signed & limited edition of the famous ‘mugshot’ of Elvis Presley. The infamous photo was taken on November 17, 1970 in Denver Colorado where Elvis was in town collecting an honorary Police badge...

Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Pool Patterns, Abstract Water Reflections Triptych, Blue Tones California Style
Pool Patterns, Abstract Water Reflections Triptych, Blue Tones California Style

Pool Patterns, Abstract Water Reflections Triptych, Blue Tones California Style

By Kind of Cyan

Located in Barcelona, ES

This is an exclusive handprinted limited edition of a cyanotype. This beautiful triptych is called "Fresh California Pool patterns", which shows the semi-abstract movements of light reflecting in a California swimming pool. Details: + Title: Fresh California Pool Patterns + Edition Size: only 20 + Stamped and Certificate of Authenticity provided. + Measurements : 100x210 cm (40 x 84 in.) Each paper measures 100cm x 70cm (about 40 in. x 28 in.) each. , a standard frame size. + All cyanotype prints...

Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Watercolor, Lithograph

Untitled (Collapsed Shacks)
Untitled (Collapsed Shacks)

Untitled (Collapsed Shacks)

By Karl Fortress

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Untitled (Collapsed Shacks), c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 ½ x 26 ½ inches, presented in a period frame This work is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: ...

Category

1940s Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of A Dapper Man In Top Hat Bright Blue Colours British Oil Painting
Portrait of A Dapper Man In Top Hat Bright Blue Colours British Oil Painting

Portrait of A Dapper Man In Top Hat Bright Blue Colours British Oil Painting

By Irina Hale

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Dapper Man Portrait by Irina Hale (British 1932-2022) oil painting on artist paper, unframed painting: 11.25 x 9 inches provenance: private collection, Cotswolds condition: very good...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Oil

Getting Ready for the Revolution - Learning How to Ride in the Subway
Getting Ready for the Revolution - Learning How to Ride in the Subway

Getting Ready for the Revolution - Learning How to Ride in the Subway

By Adolf Arthur Dehn

Located in Fairlawn, OH

Getting Ready for the Revolution - Learning How to Ride in the Subway Litho crayons on illustrator’s board, c. 1932 Signed: Adolf Dehn (VED) lower right corner (signed by Virginia Dehn, the artist’s widow) Tilted along the upper edge of the recto in pencil by the artist Verso inscriptions: “VF 3168.D” in a circle, also annotated in red pencil “32” in a circle and “699 Provenance: Mary Ryan Gallery, exhibition entitled Adolf Dehn Lithographs, 1927-1940, Nov. 16 to Dec. 12, 1982. The original exhibition notice us affixed to the backing board of the frame Note: A drawing intended or used in the publication Vanity Fair, for whom Dehn worked in the mid 1920’s to the 1930’s. Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968 Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art. In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art. If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques. Early Years, 1895-1922 For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs...

Category

1930s Modern Art

Materials

Oil Crayon

Portrait of Elegant Lady in Pink Dress with Parasol by Beach Original French Oil
Portrait of Elegant Lady in Pink Dress with Parasol by Beach Original French Oil

Portrait of Elegant Lady in Pink Dress with Parasol by Beach Original French Oil

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

"A Day by the Sea" French School, 20th century oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 29 x 21 inches provenance: private collection, France condition: very good and sound condition

Category

20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Otterhound Portrait Painting by Constance Coleman
Otterhound Portrait Painting by Constance Coleman

Otterhound Portrait Painting by Constance Coleman

Located in San Francisco, CA

Large portrait painting with group of six otterhounds in a lush garden landscape by Constance Coleman, 1979 Oil on canvas Signed & dated lower right Canvas dimensions: 34" x 46" Fr...

Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Oil

Pebble Beach Hunt (1976) Limited Estate Stamped

Pebble Beach Hunt (1976) Limited Estate Stamped

By Slim Aarons

Located in London, GB

Pebble Beach Hunt (1976) Limited Estate Stamped (Photo By Slim Aarons) Riders gather in the courtyard of Richard Collins’ House for the stirrup cup libation, before the start of...

Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Color, Archival Pigment

Fuego 8 - Modern Resin Blue Striped Minimalist Artwork
Fuego 8 - Modern Resin Blue Striped Minimalist Artwork

Fuego 8 - Modern Resin Blue Striped Minimalist Artwork

By Ricky Hunt

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Ricky Hunt’s mixed media minimalist wall art is influenced by his tumultuous past that led to a paradigm shift in creativity and life. He covers the wood panel with layers of acrylic...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

Con Ed Smokestack

Con Ed Smokestack

By Marina Stern

Located in Los Angeles, CA

This work is part of our exhibition Marina Stern Luminary, the first retrospective of the artist since 2007. Another example previously exhibited: An Exhibition of Recent Paintings ...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

1950's Modernist Painting, French Steps Up to The Church
1950's Modernist Painting, French Steps Up to The Church

1950's Modernist Painting, French Steps Up to The Church

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Church Steps by Bernard Labbe (French mid 20th century), stamped verso original watercolour/gouache painting on paper overall size: 14 x 10 inches condition: very good and ready to ...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Acrylic

View of Palermo - Lithograph - 1862

View of Palermo - Lithograph - 1862

Located in Roma, IT

Palermo is a  hand colored lithograph realized in 1864. Good conditions. The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe, or History of the gov...

Category

1860s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Purple Midnight Sky Path Leading To The Church British Modernist Oil Painting
Purple Midnight Sky Path Leading To The Church British Modernist Oil Painting

Purple Midnight Sky Path Leading To The Church British Modernist Oil Painting

By Irina Hale

Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Midnight Church signed initials by Irina Hale (British 1932-2022) oil painting on card stuck on paper, unframed overall size: 11 x 8.25 inches painting: 7 x 4.5 inches provenance: pr...

Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Oil

American School Signed Framed Impressionist Pepper Still Life Modern Painting
American School Signed Framed Impressionist Pepper Still Life Modern Painting

American School Signed Framed Impressionist Pepper Still Life Modern Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

Vintage American still life oil painting. Oil on board. Signed in monogram lower right. Framed. Measuring: 31 by 24 inches overall, and 24 by 19 painting alone.Excellent condition, r...

Category

1960s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Left Bank Cafe, Paris
Left Bank Cafe, Paris

Left Bank Cafe, Paris

By LeRoy Neiman

Located in San Francisco, CA

This artwork titled "Left Bank Cafe, Paris" 1987 is an original color serigraph by noted American artist LeRoy Neiman, 1921-2012. It is hand signed and numbered H.C 166/175 in pencil by the artist. The image size is 26 x 38 inches, sheet size is 32.25 x 44 inches. With the blind stamp of the printer Styria Studio at the lower left corner margin. It is in excellent condition, two small pieces of hanging tape remain on the back. About the artist: Mr. Neiman's kinetic, quickly executed paintings and drawings, many of them published in Playboy, offered his fans gaudily colored visual reports on heavyweight boxing matches, Super Bowl games and Olympic contests, as well as social panoramas like the horse races at Deauville, France, and the Cannes Film Festival. Quite consciously, he cast himself in the mold of French Impressionists like Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Degas, chroniclers of public life who found rich social material at racetracks, dance halls and cafes. Mr. Neiman often painted or sketched on live television. With the camera recording his progress at the sketchpad or easel, he interpreted the drama of Olympic Games and Super Bowls for an audience of millions. When Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky faced off in Reykjavik, Iceland, to decide the world chess championship, Mr. Neiman was there, sketching. He was on hand to capture Federico Fellini directing "8 ½" and the Kirov Ballet performing in the Soviet Union. In popularity, Mr. Neiman rivaled American favorites like Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses and Andrew Wyeth. A prolific one-man industry, he generated hundreds of paintings, drawings, watercolors, limited-edition serigraph prints and coffee-table books yearly, earning gross annual revenue in the tens of millions of dollars. Although he exhibited constantly and his work was included in the collections of dozens of museums around the world, critical respect eluded him. Mainstream art critics either ignored him completely or, if forced to consider his work, dismissed it with contempt as garish and superficial — magazine illustration with pretensions. Mr. Neiman professed not to care. Maybe the critics are right," he told American Artist magazine in 1995. "But what am I supposed to do about it — stop painting, change my work completely? I go back into the studio, and there I am at the easel again. I enjoy what I'm doing and feel good working. Other thoughts are just crowded out." His image suggested an artist well beyond the reach of criticism. A dandy and bon vivant, he cut an arresting figure with his luxuriant ear-to-ear mustache, white suits, flashy hats and Cuban cigars. "He quite intentionally invented himself as a flamboyant artist not unlike Salvador Dalí, in much the same way that I became Mr. Playboy in the late '50s," Hugh Hefner told Cigar Aficionado magazine in 1995. LeRoy Runquist was born on June 8, 1921, in St. Paul. His father, a railroad worker, deserted the family when LeRoy was quite young, and the boy took the surname of his stepfather. He showed a flair for art at an early age. While attending a local Roman Catholic school, he impressed schoolmates by drawing ink tattoos on their arms during recess. As a teenager, he earned money doing illustrations for local grocery stores. "I'd sketch a turkey, a cow, a fish, with the prices," he told Cigar Aficionado. "And then I had the good sense to draw the guy who owned the store. This gave me tremendous power as a kid." After being drafted into the Army in 1942, he served as a cook in the European theater but in his spare time painted risqué murals on the walls of kitchens and mess halls. The Army's Special Services Division, recognizing his talent, put him to work painting stage sets for Red Cross shows when he was stationed in Germany after the war. On leaving the military, he studied briefly at the St. Paul School of Art (now the Minnesota Museum of American Art) before enrolling in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where, after four years of study, he taught figure drawing and fashion illustration throughout the 1950s. When the janitor of the apartment building next door to his threw out half-empty cans of enamel house paint, Mr. Neiman found his métier. Experimenting with the new medium, he embraced a rapid style of applying paint to canvas imposed by the free-flowing quality of the house paint. While doing freelance fashion illustration for the Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago in the early 1950s, he became friendly with Mr. Hefner, a copywriter there who was on the verge of publishing the first issue of a men's magazine. In 1954, after five issues of Playboy had appeared, Mr. Neiman ran into Mr. Hefner and invited him to his apartment to see his paintings of boxers, strip clubs and restaurants. Mr. Hefner, impressed, showed the work to Playboy's art director, Art Paul, who commissioned an illustration for "Black Country," a story by Charles Beaumont about a jazz musician. Thus began a relationship that endured for more than half a century and established Mr. Neiman's reputation. In 1955, when Mr. Hefner decided that the party-jokes page needed visual interest, Mr. Neiman came up with the Femlin, a curvaceous brunette who cavorted across the page in thigh-high stockings, high-heeled shoes, opera gloves and nothing else. She appeared in every issue of the magazine thereafter. Three years later, Mr. Neiman devised a running feature, "Man at His Leisure." For the next 15 years, he went on assignment to glamour spots around the world, sending back visual reports on subjects as varied as the races at Royal Ascot, the dining room of the Tour d'Argent in Paris, the nude beaches of the Dalmatian coast, the running of the bulls at Pamplona and Carnaby Street in swinging London. He later produced more than 100 paintings and 2 murals for 18 of the Playboy clubs that opened around the world. "Playboy made the good life a reality for me and made it the subject matter of my paintings — not affluence and luxury as such, but joie de vivre itself," Mr. Neiman told V.I.P. magazine in 1962. Working in the same copywriting department at Carson Pirie Scott as Mr. Hefner was Janet Byrne, a student at the Art Institute. She and Mr. Neiman married in 1957. She survives him. A prolific artist, he generated dozens of paintings each year that routinely commanded five-figure prices. When Christie's auctioned off the Playboy archives in 2003, his 1969 painting Man at His Leisure: Le Mans sold for $107,550. Sales of the signed, limited-edition print versions of his paintings, published in editions of 250 to 500, became a lucrative business in itself after Knoedler Publishing, a wholesale operation, was created in 1975 to publish and distribute his serigraphs, etchings, books and posters. Mr. Neiman's most famous images came from the world of sports. His long association with the Olympics began with the Winter Games in Squaw Valley in 1960, and he went on to cover the games, on live television, in Munich in 1972, Montreal in 1976, Lake Placid in 1980, and Sarajevo and Los Angeles in 1984, using watercolor, ink or felt-tip marker to produce images with the dispatch of a courtroom sketch artist. At the 1978 and 1979 Super Bowls, he used a computerized electronic pen to portray the action for CBS. Although he was best known for scenes filled with people and incident, he also painted many portraits. Athletes predominated, with Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath among his more famous subjects, but he also painted Leonard Bernstein, the ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Art

Materials

Screen

A Large, Captivating 1930s Modern Portrait of a Jamaican Man in a Linen Suit
A Large, Captivating 1930s Modern Portrait of a Jamaican Man in a Linen Suit

A Large, Captivating 1930s Modern Portrait of a Jamaican Man in a Linen Suit

By Francis Chapin

Located in Chicago, IL

A Large, Captivating 1930s Modern Portrait of a Jamaican Man in a Linen Suit by famed Chicago artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). A skilled and colorful portrait of a black man seated in a white linen suit, most likely completed during Chapin's trip to Kingston, Jamaica in the 1930s. Chapin exhibited examples of his Jamaican paintings...

Category

1930s Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Speedboat Landing Slim Aarons Limited Estate Print
Speedboat Landing Slim Aarons Limited Estate Print

Speedboat Landing Slim Aarons Limited Estate Print

By Slim Aarons

Located in London, GB

Speedboat Landing A Magnum motorboat belonging to Count Filippo Theodoli arrives at the private jetty of the Il Pellicano Hotel in Porto Ercole, Italy, August 1973. A modern classic...

Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Color, Archival Pigment

The Drugs Don’t Work - Giant Signed Limited Edition Pop Art Print

The Drugs Don’t Work - Giant Signed Limited Edition Pop Art Print

By BATIK

Located in London, GB

The Drugs Don’t Work by BATIK Archival pigment pop art print of the 1960s supermodel Twiggy signed & limited edition. Giant 60 x 40 inches / 152 x 101 cm paper size signed and n...

Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Audrey Atomic by BATIK

Audrey Atomic by BATIK

By BATIK

Located in London, GB

Audrey Atomic by BATIK Pop Artwork of the iconic Audrey Hepburn during filming of Breakfast At Tiffany's. BATIK is an increasingly collectable pop artist currently living and wor...

Category

2010s Modern Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Flower Lined Home, Modern Lithograph by Guy Charon
Flower Lined Home, Modern Lithograph by Guy Charon

Flower Lined Home, Modern Lithograph by Guy Charon

By Guy Charon

Located in Long Island City, NY

Guy Charon, French (1927 - 2021) - Flower Lined Home, Year: circa 1975, Medium: Lithograph on Arches, signed, and numbered in pencil, Edition: 250, EA, Image Size: 22.75 x 18.25 ...

Category

1970s Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Grim Orvieto
Grim Orvieto

Grim Orvieto

By John Taylor Arms

Located in Middletown, NY

Etching on watermarked FJ Head cream laid paper with a deckle edge, 11 1/8 x 8 3/4 inches (283 x 223 mm); sheet 14 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches (374 x 292 mm), full margins. Signed and dated ...

Category

Early 20th Century Modern Art

Materials

Handmade Paper, Etching, Laid Paper

Modern art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Modern art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, red, orange, purple and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Kevin Westenberg, Stuart Möller, Destro, and Christel Haag. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Paper and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Modern art, so small editions measuring 0.4 inches across are also available. Prices for art made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $33 and tops out at $390,000, while the average work sells for $1,912.